NEWS ITEMS

2012 April 21. Trans-Neptunian Object (TNO) Discovery. Tom Vorobjov directs the IASC Data Reduction Team (IDaRT). Using images from Bob Holmes of the Astronomical Research Institute (Westfield, IL) dated April 19th, he discovered a trans-Neptunian object (TNO) located outside the orbit of Pluto. Its diameter is approximately 200 km. Designated at 2012 HH2 by the Minor Planet Center, the orbit varies from 29.5 AU to 46 AU from the Sun. It has an orbital period of 232 years (orbit diagram below). The Catalina Sky Survey (Tucson, AZ) and the Magdalena Ridge Observatory (Socorro, NM) provided follow-ups. These were important in helping to determine the orbit and establish that 2012 HH2 resides in the outer Solar System. This is a most important discovery...and a first for IASC. Congratulations to Tom and Bob!! ---Dr. Patrick Miller, Hardin-Simmons University

2011 December 8. Nobel Lectures in Physics. HOU-founder Carl Pennypacker is a colleague of 2011 Physics Nobel prize-winner Saul Perlmutter. In December 2011, Carl and his wife accompanied the Perlmutters to Stockholm, Sweden, for the Nobel Prize ceremony. Click here to view pictures of the week's festivities and read Carl's thoughts about his experiences.

2011 December 6. An Interview with Saul Perlmutter by Polish schoolchildren. HOU TRA Lech Mankiewicz shares: "As this year Nobel Laureates gather in Stockholm for the final ceremony, I would like to share a YouTube video taken during a videoconference between Saul Permutter and my daughter's class in Warsaw. I think it shows science at its best from the society point of view, our parents were deeply moved by the way SP answered kid's questions, and I think everyone watching the video will be moved as well... "
Lech notes and appreciates the role of Carl Pennypacker in arranging this interview.

2011 November 9. Berkeley Lab-founded Program Brings Astronomy to Africa. By Julia Chao, Berkeley Lab News Center. Excerpt: Susan Murabana majored in economics, but science is her true calling, or more specifically, science education and outreach. She loves nothing more than inspiring young people to engage in science and discover new concepts. So when she came across the educational program Global Hands-On Universe (GHOU) several years ago, she immediately knew she wanted to get involved.
GHOU was started in the early 1990s by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory astronomer Carl Pennypacker, who has now brought it to thousands of teachers in more than a dozen countries around the world. Murabana leads the effort in Africa—already she has reached hundreds of schools in her native Kenya and is making progress in other African nations as well….
…But it’s not just about Africa learning from the West. “I want to collect traditional sky knowledge in East Africa from different communities, and have something from Africa that we can share with the rest of the world,” she said….

2011 October 4. HOU founder Carl Pennypacker is a colleague of Saul Perlmutter at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Perlmutter and two other scientists share the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics for their work studying the acceleration of the expansion of the universe using supernova data. Carl and HOU TRAs reflect on this honor and its relationship to the work of HOU teachers and students at Carl's page.

Read press releases about this award, and the science behind it, from:

UC Berkeley News Center: http://newscenter.berkeley.edu/2011/10/04/saul-perlmutter-awarded-2011-nobel-prize-in-physics/
The NY Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/05/science/space/05nobel.html?_r=1&ref=science
The San Francisco Chronicle:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2011/10/05/MNU61LD6UC.DTL

Ongoing. The International Astronomical Search Collaboration (IASC) provides images and software for schools to participate in a large asteroid-finding research project.
IASC asteroid discoveries are listed on the IASC facebook page -  http://www.facebook.com/iasc.news (click on "Discoveries" in left column)
Discoveries can also be found at the IASC website http://iasc.hsutx.edu/index_files/Page786.htm

PBS-KQED video on Cyberlearning -- has segments that show participants in the Universe Quest Project, the after-school component of HOU, in action in an urban setting in Oakland. Here, you will see our good students saying how much they learned from astronomy, and how it is fascinating to them. These students would never be exposed to such materials in their normal classrooms. --Carl Pennypacker

2010 Apr 13. OCHS senior advances in engineering event. The Derrick. Excerpt: Inga Saathoff, a student at Oil City High School, has been selected to advance to the International Science and Engineering Fair in San Jose, Calif., next month.
Saathoff was one of only two students picked to go to the May 9-14 event in California following the Pittsburgh Regional Science and Engineering Fair last month. 
More than 1,000 students from about 100 school in western Pennsylvania and Maryland competed for $1 million in cash prizes and scholarships at the Pittsburgh fair. About 1,500 students from 50 nations will compete for scholarships tuition grants, internships and scientific field trips at the international fair. 
The grand prize will be an all-expense paid trip to the Nobel Prize ceremonies in Stockholm, Sweden.
Saathoff's research focuses on the development of a new method to identify young, sun-like T-Tauri stars in their earliest stages of development using small-scale optical telescopes.
Tim Spuck [HOU teacher leader], Saathoff's teacher at Oil City, said her work has brought the idea from a "maybe it will work" to "yes this method has strong scientific merit" and potentially will lead to an all-sky survey and long-term monitoring project for years to come….

HOU is a resource of the Digital Library for Earth Science Education (DLESE).   You may submit a review of HOU resources for inclusion in the DLESE Reviewed Collection at DLESE. Thank you for taking the time.

NOTEWORTHY HOU IMAGES

[click for larger image]

Image of M83 galaxy captured by Glen Reagan, March 2012, with the HOU Bickley Scope (RCOP) in Perth, Australia with R-V-B filters, 180 sec exposure times.

See more News Items.